If I Could Only Remember

Project info

I was born in 1987 in Cracow, Poland; the Berlin wall was still up, and my parents wanted to escape,what they didn’t know to be, the last traces of communism left in the country. We flee to Germany, where we stay in a refugee camp for about a year, and then went to Canada for 7 years. Our last destination was Switzerland, where I live now.
If I Could Only Remember is a travel through my memories, about the moments I spent at my youngest age, between 0 and 3. It all beguins with my first memory, which strangely coincides with the last day we spent at our refugee camp in Germany with my parents, before flying to Canada. The memory is me, sitting on the edge of a Jacuzzi, I then see my mother, wrapping me with a big towel.
With this project, I am retracing my memories of what I lived, and also the memories my mind created with the stories I’ve been told by my parents and relatives. I’ve tried to represent everything like in a dream, or maybe a blurred memory.
Some of the things are anchored in the real world and then represented as if in a dream. I’m alternating between the two worlds as if I was confused about the truth and the representation I’ve made myself believe were true. In these images, I am trying to show the viewer I am trying to recreate something, to show theme I am looking for some sort of answer or maybe trying to recreate a truth.
This is all a reflexion of my blurred memories I am trying to rediscover, to put a fresh image on.
This project is my diploma work presented at CEPV, Vevey - Switzerland in juin 2017. It received the USPP prize which is given to the best diploma projet. It is also be exhibited at the Photoforum Pasquart in Biel - Switzerland in December 2017, and part of it is exhibited and the Biennale of Contemporary Art at the Museum of Fine Arts in la Chaux-de-Fonds - Switzerland.